Alonso, who drove an excellent race to climb up from 10th on the grid, has consolidated his championship lead and is now 37 points ahead of Hamilton, who moved up from fifth to second.

"It was pretty trouble free, I don't think I had any problems," said Hamilton. "The guys did a great job, [and I] got a great start for once, so very happy with that.

"Very unfortunate for Jenson because we were one-two at the time and it would have been fantastic to have been first and second."

Alonso said: "Absolutely perfect Sunday for us. Obviously the win was out of reach after starting 10th.

"If we cannot win, podium is next target and all the predictions was never on the podium finish, so much better than I expected. Jenson and the two Red Bulls were out of the race, so [it's the] perfect Sunday for me."

Hamilton was in impressive form, holding off Massa's challenge into the first corner and then building a lead which he was able to protect for the rest of the race.

But Perez and Alonso also drove strong races to take the final two podium finishes.

Perez chose to start on the hard tyres and made his tyre stop six laps after Hamilton.

That meant he was on the faster 'medium' tyre for the last part of the race, taking advantage of their greater pace and extra freshness to rapidly haul in the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa.

"I don't think we had the pace in qualifying for a single lap," said Perez. "We were lacking too much speed on the straights.

"Yesterday in qualifying I did not have good lap, I was too close to Bruno Senna, I lost downforce, that was reason not to be in top 10 but it helped us to change the strategy, we start on the prime and it worked quite well."

He closed in on Hamilton, too, but not fast enough to be a serious threat.

Hamilton's victory means he joins Alonso as the only two drivers to win three races this season.